Principal, AI Ventures & Events

Macmillan Publishers; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 157,000 - 200,000; Full time

Job summary

Holtzbrinck AI Hub in San Francisco seeks a strategic leader to shape and execute the venture-building agenda across its portfolio, collaborating with executives and portfolio leaders.

You will organize premier events like the Liquid Content Summit, oversee demo nights, and drive partnerships with AI labs, startups, and academic groups to advance strategic AI priorities.

Qualifications

• Strong network among builders in AI, science, education or media.
• Proven experience in strategy consulting, venture building, or large-scale event production.
• Hands-on operating style balancing strategy and operations.
• Technical fluency; ability to evaluate AI demos and startup tech credibility.
• Founder empathy to support early-stage teams through ambiguity.

Responsibilities

• Help build and launch new ventures end to end: from early validation through founder support and funding decisions.
• Build the founder pipeline from internal and external candidates across research groups, accelerators, and universities.
• Prepare funding recommendations for the Executive Board with milestones and stop criteria.
• Organize the Liquid Content Summit, the AI Hub's flagship industry event.
• Run demo nights and hackathons to connect builders across startups and labs.

Skills

AI/tech network

Strategy consulting

Venture building

Event production

Technical fluency

Founder empathy

Event craftsmanship

Analytical skills

Job description

Holtzbrinck is one of the world's leading media companies. We're home to Springer Nature, Macmillan Publishers, Macmillan Learning, DIE ZEIT, and Digital Science, with a portfolio spanning science, education, literature, and journalism. Our values, curiosity, commitment, and passion, carried us to over 14,000 people, more than 120 countries, and over USD 4 billion in revenue.

Based in San Francisco, the AI Hub sits at the intersection of a global media group and the world's most vibrant AI ecosystem. We shape the group's AI strategy, build partnerships with leading AI labs, run programs that grow AI capability across our companies, and invest in what comes next. We work directly with the Executive Board, leaders and builders across the portfolio.

Holtzbrinck is launching a venture studio building the next generation of companies in science, media, and education, and as part of the strategy team, you bring it to life. You report to the Managing Director of the AI Hub and work closely with the Executive Board, alongside our Strategy and Ventures colleagues, to keep Holtzbrinck ahead.

You also own the events where leading voices in AI connect: the Liquid Content Summit, Demo Days, and hackathons, moments that convene the smartest minds in AI, science, media, and education to spark ideas off each other and build something new.

The ventures and programs you work on connect directly to Holtzbrinck's strategic AI priorities: agentic research workflows, the future of science education, agent-ready publishing, multimodal storytelling formats across science, non-fiction, fiction, and news, and more.

What you'll do:

• Help build and launch new ventures end to end: from early validation through founder support and funding decisions
• Build the founder pipeline from internal talent across the portfolio, and external candidates who complement them, sourced from research groups, accelerators, university networks, and startups. Prepare and run selection, matching, and team formation for each cohort
• Prepare funding recommendations for the Executive Board, including milestones, funding stages, and clear stop criteria, and track each venture against them after launch
• Organize the Liquid Content Summit, the AI Hub's flagship industry event that gathers leading minds in AI, science, education and media.
• Run demo nights and hackathons that convene builders across startups, AI Labs, creators and Holtzbrinck's builders

What success looks like:

• New ventures move from idea to build with a strong, competitive pipeline of founders
• Founders describe working with you as the reason they could build fast, and would recommend it to other top talent
• Funding decisions are evidence-based and disciplined; stopping a venture is executed as cleanly as funding one
• The Liquid Content Summit grows in reputation, gathered top speakers and delivered promising co-creation across internal and external builders
• Demo Days and hackathons convert into follow-up: pilots, partnerships, or investment conversations you can point to

What you'll bring:

• A strong network among builders in AI, science, education or media
• Profound experience in strategy consulting, venture building, or large-scale event production
• A hands‑on operating style, seamlessly switching between strategy and operations
• Technical fluency; you've built with AI tools, can read a demo critically, and can assess whether a startup's tech is real or wrapper‑deep
• Founder empathy: you can support early‑stage teams through ambiguity without taking the wheel
• Proven event craft, from curating speakers to designing experiences people remember
• Sharp analytical skills: you turn complex, fast‑moving developments into briefings executives act on

The salary range for this role is $157,000 - $200,000.

Macmillan Publishers is the U.S. trade company that is part of the Holtzbrinck Publishing Group, a large family‑owned group of media companies headquartered in Stuttgart, Germany. Holtzbrinck Publishing Group's publishing companies include prominent imprints around the world that publish a broad range of award‑winning books for children and adults in all categories and formats.

U.S. publishers include Celadon Books, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Flatiron Books, Henry Holt & Company, Macmillan Audio, Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group, The St. Martin's Publishing Group, and Tor Publishing Group. In the UK, Australia, India, and South Africa, companies in the Holtzbrinck Publishing Group publish under the Pan Macmillan name. The German publishing company, Holtzbrinck Deutsche Buchverlage, includes among its imprints S. Fischer, Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Rowohlt, and Droemer Knaur.

Macmillan is proud to be an equal opportunity employer, consistently striving to foster a culture where everyone belongs. We welcome applicants of all backgrounds and identities. Qualified applicants are evaluated without regard to race, color, religion, age, ethnicity, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, disability status, physical ability, neurodiversity, genetic information, protected veteran status, family and economic status, and background or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local law. We prohibit discrimination of any kind and will provide reasonable accommodations to qualified individuals with disabilities in accordance with applicable law.

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